Chevrolet’s 1968-82 ‘Vette should have come with an optional chestwig and gold medallion, writes Shahzad Sheikh.
Car journos will often refer to ‘coke-bottle’ styling, which is an easy fall-back when they need to describe cars with bulging extremities and narrow centres.
The 1968-1982 C3 Corvette Stingray (only badged ‘Stingray’ from 1969-76, but it’s what everyone calls it anyway), viewed from any angle, absolutely epitomises this comparison to that iconic piece of brand-boosting beverage-holding Americana.
Its exaggerated extremities are cartoony. The bodywork is draped over the wheels, and a huge bonnet announces the car’s unquestionable masculinity with all the subtlety of the late Barry White’s basso profundo.
There’s a tiny cabin to keep things intimate between the driver and his, er, associate, and that boot-less rear actually has a generous compartment and is an ideal place to hide stuff, because a man’s gotta have secrets – it makes him sexier (at least that’s what it said in a woman’s mag… apparently).
The self-acclaimed ‘America’s best sportscar’, has always been a subject for extrovert design, and the reason the C3 looks so outrageous is because it’s virtually unchanged from the concept car that sired it – the Mako Shark II, which had an even more protruding and sharply pointed nose.
Those familiar with Elasmobranchii will know that the Mako is one fast shark.
Appropriately the cars typically came with 5.7-litre (350cu) or 7.4 (454cu) engines with power outputs up to 425bhp.
The public got another preview of the car when Mattel released its first line of Hotwheels 1/64 scale toy cars, and included a ‘Custom Corvette’ a few weeks before the official launch of the C3. Oops.
In 1968 Yanks were mostly driving Chevy Caprices and Impalas – huge wallowy yachts with expansive straight-edged metalwork. In conservative small-town America, the psychedelic Corvette would have been deemed vulgar, but it clearly had longevity and ran for over 14 years with nearly half a million made.
The fewest were produced in 1974, which makes Pravin Bhagwat’s stock 350Ci V8 T-Top in its original orange with the beige vinyl interior, a rare example of the breed.This was the year that ABBA won the Eurovision song contest with Waterloo, President Richard Nixon was impeached in the Watergate scandal, Muhammed Ali knocked out George Foremen during the Rumble in the Jungle, and kids watched a cartoon about the Harlem Globetrotters on Saturday mornings.
Most monumentally of all that year, the Stingray lost its chrome bumpers.
Okay, so that wasn’t really that big a deal, but purists argue the original chrome-ended cars are the most worthy examples of the breed; hence the high values of earlier C3s at around $40-50k, whereas good later examples can be had from $15-25k.
I’d counter that the 1974-on car is representative of how this ‘Vette is best remembered, because it’s in the ’70s that the Stingray really came into its own.
It’s a car of the times, so much so that I was disappointed that Bhagwat didn’t arrive sporting an Afro, a shiny gold medallion on fake chest hair, with spangly platform shoes below absurdly flared trousers and lapels wide enough to land a Jumbo Jet on.
And then of course there should have been the requisite accompanying soundtrack ideally from a TDK D90 cassette chock full of retro-funk.
And much like that decade, the ‘Vette steadily became more show and less go, as engine outputs declined thanks to the fuel crisis.
This car’s been in Dubai a year, although Bhagwat’s owned it for the last six having previously run it in the States. Along with the relatively affordable purchasing price of this legend, the costs are ‘mostly seals, hose leaks, small stuff like that,’ says Bhagwat.
It’s amazing that overheating is not an issue here. I don’t use it as an everyday driver, but the aircon cools quite well. I maintain the car myself – I’m not qualified mechanically, but I know most of the stuff.’
This relative user-friendliness is part of its appeal over the temperamental tantrums of an European exotic of similar vintage, but the disadvantage is the lack of respect this ‘Chevy’ gets.
Bhagwat bemoans that fact that people here dismiss it as just an old car. But it’s more than that.
It’s John Travolta at his Saturday Night Fever peak.
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